Peer to Leader: It's Not a Promotion

Often when a peer is select to lead their current team, the process is mistakenly viewed as a promotion, when it’s actually a career transformation and transition.

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Treat people like they make a difference and they will.

Transcript

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Welcome to First Time Leaders Accelerated. Leading people is the most important responsibility in the world, yet 60% of first-time leaders fail. With over four decades of experience in leader transformation and culture improvement, I created this podcast to help you prevent first-time leader failure and improve dysfunctional cultures. This is your podcast if you are a generation X, Y, or Z and are interested in leading people. Or you are someone who hires or selects first-time leaders. Or you are a solopreneur who hired your first people. I'm Timothy Dean Smith, your host and first-time leader trainer and coach. Monthly from January through July, I deliver concise, practical solutions you can apply immediately and benefit from for a lifetime. Now, get ready to solve a leader or culture problem. Often when a peer is selected to lead their current team, the process is mistakenly viewed as a promotion, when it's actually a career transformation and transition. This incorrect perspective is often the first step on the road to first-time leader failure. And unfortunately, this scenario plays out too often in organizations across the globe. I call this how to lose your best people and wreck your culture in three easy steps. And those steps usually go like this. First, an individual performer is selected without consideration for the leader prerequisites. Second, an individual performer is not trained or inadequately trained. And third, the first-time leader ultimately fails and often is forced to make the career decision to leave their organization rather than remain and face the embarrassment of returning to their pre-promotion role labeled as a leader failure. Usually they leave to work for someone else, typically a competitor, performing their pre-promotion roles. The business loses a great talent. Others may leave as well. This negatively impacts the emotions and productivity of those who remain, who will be hesitant when their approach to lead. Based on a study by the Ken Blanchard companies, one incorrect leader selection can cost a business over$1 million in net losses, not to mention the lingering emotional and financial distress on the people that remain. Based on the compelling findings in a Harvard Business Review survey, 30 is the average age when people get their first opportunity to lead. 42 is the average age when people receive their first formal leader training if they actually survive as a leader that long. That's operating untrained on average for 12 years. Imagine a dentist, surgeon, pilot, or air traffic controller operating untrained for 12 years. That would be absolutely ridiculous. Then why do we tolerate this low standard for the most important responsibility in the world, leading people? Going from peer to leader is not a traditional promotion. It's a career transformation and transition, and most people are never trained properly for it. Well, I'm sure you're interested in how to prevent this all too common failure, which happens 60% of the time. The initial most important step in selecting a first-time leader is considering the individual's ability to lead themselves. Self-leadership. Self-leadership is a fancy way of describing how you lead your life. Often the most difficult person to lead is yourself. If you cannot lead your life well, you cannot be expected to lead others well. I use four phases to transform and transition the right people to the most important responsibility in the world. The first phase is where the leader candidate is selected, and typically the question people will ask is, now what? All you have to do is simply answer the four leader prerequisite questions. The second phase, the leader candidate is transformed from peer to first-time leader using classroom training. And often the mistake is made here that people think that they can train leaders to become a leader in a classroom and you really can't do that. The third phase, the first-time leader is coached through the transition to people-centered leader. Then they actually begin leading. And the fourth and one of the most critical components or phases is the people-centered leader will receive monthly leader coaching. If you need help with leader transformation andor dysfunctional culture improvement, click on the Schedule Our Get to Know Each Other conversation in the show notes. If you found my solution valuable, share this podcast with your colleagues wherever they listen to podcast. Leading people is the most important responsibility in the world, and I ensure your leadership matters. Begin your transformation and transition today. Click on Schedule our Get to Know Each Other conversation link in the show notes or visit tdspi.com. That's tdspi.com. Thank you for listening to the First Time Leaders Accelerated podcast. Take care.